Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Arab Spring Was a Lie

The Arab Spring was met with cautious optimism across the world, it looked like the muslim world might be taking a step forward and many news broadcasters and cultural commentators likened it to the renaissance of the western world. Let that sink in for a moment. People compared a movement typified by violent protests in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and more to the intellectual enlightenment of Europe. Sometimes I really don't want to live on this planet anymore.

It looks more and more like the Arab Spring was foisted on the world not by liberalized, modern-thinking muslim rebels, but by the group known as The Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has done some notable charitable acts in the past and I won't pretend that it hasn't had some positive influence, however it has been linked closely with the terrorist group Hamas. However there is the issue thatThe Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Qur'an and Sunnah
as the "sole reference point for ...ordering the life of the Muslim
family, individual, community ... and state". The movement officially
opposes violent means to achieve its goals, although it at one time
encompassed a paramilitary wing and its members were involved in
massacres, bombings and assassinations of political opponents; notably Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha what this means is that The Muslim Brotherhood is by any reasonable definition a fundamentalist group with the stated goal of establishing a theocracy.

In some countries they are desperately close to doing precisely this. No one will claim Hosni Mubarak was a saint. As the president of Egypt he often ruled using the power of the police. The new president and Muslim Brotherhood follower Mohamed Morsi is taking it, perhaps, a step further. Earlier this year Hamas attacked Israel on the Egyptian border, killing 16, since then Morsi has increased military presence on the border for "security reasons" and replaced the generals who had by and large operated independently of political concerns in the past with commanders who profess loyalty to the cause of The Brotherhood.

Everywhere the Arab Spring arose violence is on the rise, from Yemen and Iraq, to Syria and Turkey. This week a Japanese journalist named Mika Yamamoto was shot fatally reporting on the violence that permeates the border between the two countries and there are rumors of both sides having plans towards Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles. This is no enlightenment, we can only hope those springtime flowers commentators were so sure of don't end up burning.